THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CITY. , , '

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19011, 31 July 1933, Page 6

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CITY. , , '

...... I London is a geographical expression, variously defined; but as a unit of population clustering in scores of suburbs and dormitory towns round its metropolitan centre it is still the Jjiggest/?ity in. the world, and it has lately been growing at an unmanageable rate. . :j Thus regarded, “Greater London,” as it is called, has an area of 700 square miles, and includes about one-quarter of the inhabitants of England; In the ten years between 1921 and 1931 the population of its, outer area increased by more than 1,000,000, and it has been continuously spreading since then. It has been throwing out ungainly tentacles over the once, rural areas that surrounded it, and in spite of the riot of new building that has been going on continuously since the war, there is still overcrowding at the centre.

This vast problem has been under the systematic consideration of a body known as the Greater London, Regional Planning Committee. The .committee will shortly make way for a permanent body set’-up by Act of Parliament which will work out a general plan for the assistance of all the local authorities, about 100 in number, which govern the area.

How easy it is for undirected growth to spoil a huge area may be judged by the fact that of the 700 square, miles affected only 400 are actually occupied as building sites. The houses are scattered, here in lumps of population, there in ribbon development along the roads. But . there is .much that may yet be done by planning new building within the area, and strictly controlling new development on the fringe. The plan envisages a “ green girdle ” as near to the. completely urbanised area of London as for playing fields and pleasure spaces, and the definition of the areas outside the girdle, some for building according, to plan, some for public spaces.

A particularly important part of the scheme takes account of the new industries which tend more and more to collect iri the neighbourhood of London. These, it, is pointed out, should be planned as parts of complete units with residential areas and trading centres suitably combined. Thus the scheme indicates the grouping of industries and the grouping of subsidiary centres of population, and the simultaneous planning of housing and traffic facilities. Much will depend on the .goodwill and initiative of local authorities. It is not enough to have a good plan, The next, and usually more difficult, thing is to get it carried out. It will be facilitated in London by the /recent co-ordination of all. forms of traffic under a single board. It cannot be tqo strongly emphasised that town planning ought always to be strictly co-ordinated with traffic planning. For tpwns make traffic, and traffic makes towns. What is needed, in every great centre of population is a comprehensive plan which takes into account factories,, shops, dwellings, parks, fields as the fixed body of a locality, and roads, railways, waterways and air routes as the arteries of circulation. ' C .